Loomingu Raamatukogu publishes Ana Blandiana story collection

The Loomingu Raamatukogu book series has published a collection of short stories by Romanian writer Ana Blandiana, translated and compiled by Riina Jesmin, ERR reports.

The collection, titled The Ghost Church and Other Stories, brings together stories from Blandiana’s book Plans for the Past. Blandiana, born in 1942, is a prolific and acclaimed poet, prose writer and essayist, and a living classic of Romanian literature.

In the stories, an angel works in a factory, an actor goes to a wake that turns out to be a performance, a dream character tries to find the person dreaming them, and a church sawn loose from its foundations begins a long journey through landscapes and eras.

Blandiana’s stories blend history, dreams, legends and everyday life. Their blurred boundaries between fantasy and reality unsettle readers, who see both sides at once and can no longer be sure which is more real.

The title story from Plans for the Past was published in Loomingu Raamatukogu in 1989, also in a translation by Jesmin.